


Short & Simple

by beloved_key



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Major Character Injury, Pneumonia, Sickfic, Whump, no one dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 00:52:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16863154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beloved_key/pseuds/beloved_key
Summary: Just a short mission, they said. Only simple reconnaissance, they said. You’ll have almost a whole week of rest after, they said.Since when is anything they do ever a “short, simple mission” when they expect it to be, Lance wonders, but he doesn’t voice this thought out loud.





	Short & Simple

Just a short mission, they said. Only simple reconnaissance, they said. You’ll have almost a whole week of rest after, they said.

Since when is anything they do ever a “short, simple mission” when they expect it to be, Lance wonders, but he doesn’t voice this thought out loud. With Pidge and Hunk working overtime to get the Green Lion--damaged in a recent battle--back into fighting shape ASAP, and Keith busy keeping the peace between Allura and a Blade of Marmora adviser (they seemed to like Keith, which made sense, Lance supposed), team Voltron was severely undermanned. Only Shiro and Lance were available for active duty.

So, of course, this was when an obnoxious space cold had decided to take up residence in Lance’s face. This was also, of course, when Allura had finally agreed to put the castle down for a short while to run some much-needed maintenance and system upgrades. Which, of course, meant that someone had to scan the planet they’d chosen--a backwater system that had already been passed over by the Galra, having no resources of interest--to make sure it was safe to land on.

This meant Shiro and Lance.

Lance did try to be open about his state of being; a few fainting-spell incidents aside, he’d grown up one of the youngest children in a large family, and he knew how important it was to take care of yourself as a result, and let someone know when you weren’t feeling your best. It had been more difficult early on--Hunk was the only one Lance felt comfortable admitting weakness to, at first, and the guy, good friend though he was, would’ve immediately blabbed to the others in his anxiety--but recently Lance had gotten better at going to the others for help. It wasn’t an easy adjustment to make; one team member being his hero, another his rival, and then Pidge, who fit oh-so-neatly into the stereotype of the socially-awkward genius. But he’d been improving.

That being said… Now wasn’t exactly the best time for Lance to get sick. He wasn’t about to let Shiro go it alone--because he would, stubborn heroic-type he was--and admitting to feeling less-than-stellar would inevitably cause Shiro to not delegate to him as much. Lance needed to pull his own weight, now more than ever, and a surefire way to make sure that he wouldn’t be allowed to was to tell Shiro he was sick.

So, headache, clogged nose, scratchy throat, and vague fatigue aside, Lance was ready for this mission. Just a lap around the planet, an assessment of the landing site, and everything would be fine, right?

Wrong.

The planet wasn’t supposed to be inhabited, you see. All their scans had come up negative. The thing is, Altean scanners were set for organic life forms. Whoever these people were, they were more metallic than organic. Not yet spacefaring, not by a long shot, but that didn’t mean they weren’t capable of doing a fair amount of damage.

To the Black Lion, specifically.

Lance hadn’t seen it happen, but he’d been quick to react; a long tendril of wire had shot up from the surface, the harpoon-like tip impaling itself in one of Black’s wings, tugging her off-course and into a rock formation. Cursing wildly, Lance whirled Blue around, firing a short barrage to sever the wire and hopefully scare off whoever had fired the thing. Not bothering to wait and see if they really had been scared off, Lance brought Blue down carefully next to the half-buried Black Lion, and activated her particle barrier.

“Be right back, beautiful.” Lance murmured. “Keep an eye on things for me.”

A rumble of reassurance pulsed at the back of Lance’s brain, and the paladin was glad for the encouragement. Quickly jetpacking his way out of Blue, Lance turned on his com.

“Shiro? Can you hear me?” He desperately tried to keep his voice from being too frantic as he made his way over the crumbling pile of rocks, trying to get at Black’s head. “Shiro?! Come on, boss-man, I need to hear your voice right now.”

A vague grunt from his headset sent a pulse of relief through Lance. Alive. Good. Black obligingly cracked her jaw open, but she couldn’t quite manage to open all the way, low on power and damaged as she was. Grimacing at his aching limbs, Lance wormed his way into the cockpit, trying not to breath in too much dust with his already-raspy lungs.

“Shiro!” The black paladin was leaning up against the side of his pilot’s chair, arm curled protectively about his chest. Lance rushed forward, not bothering to muffle his cough; there was too much damn dust in the air, even if Shiro hadn’t been injured and out of it, he probably wouldn’t think too much of it.

“Lance.” Shiro breathed, eyes cracking open as he tried to force a smile. “Well, this is embarrassing.”

Normally, Lance would’ve appreciated their leader’s attempt at lightening the mood, but at the moment he had work to do. “How bad?” He rasped, hands hovering over Shiro’s body, not wanting to make contact until he was sure he wouldn’t make it any worse.

“Could’ve been worse.” Shiro grunted, shifting slightly and hissing his breath in pain. “General bruising all around. Cracked a rib or two somewhere in there.”

“Broken?” Lance asked quickly. If there was a chance Shiro’s lung was punctured…

Shiro closed his eyes for a moment, taking stock. “I don’t--ngh! I don’t think so. Nothing feels out of place, just…”

“Hurts like unholy quiznack?” Lance suggested.

Shiro managed a smirk. “Something like that. We should probably get out of here, huh?”

“Yeah.” Lance carefully shifted Shiro’s arm over his shoulder, hefting him up as gently as possible. “You wanna go slow, or get it over with?”

“Get it over with.” Shiro grit out, already noticeably paler, but expression grim with determination.

A short, painful hike-slide later, Shiro was set up in Blue, contacting the castle while Lance fiddled with the first-aid kit.

“Some sort of atmospheric interference, they’re having trouble pinning down our coordinates.” Shiro informed as Lance rushed back over with some water and Altean pain meds. “Shouldn’t be too long, though.”

Lance didn’t reply, merely coughing into his shoulder and doling out the proper dose. Shiro frowned, accepting the pills as they were handed to him.

“You doing okay?”

Finally pulling off his helmet, Lance shrugged. “I didn’t crash, so--” He broke off, a wracking cough forcing its way out of his lungs. Startled, Shiro leaned forward, easing Lance onto the bench next to him.

“Water.” Shiro ordered, placing the water pouch to Lance’s lips. Between hacking fits, Lance managed to get a few sips in, and his breathing slowly returned to normal, leaving him shaky and exhausted, and the cabin in tense silence.

“Dust?” He offered hopefully. Shiro shook his head.

“Unless ‘dust’ causes you to develop a definite fever and speak in a severely congested and raspy voice, not to mention, uh…” His eyes flicked down to the hand Lance had been covering his mouth in, which was now tinted with…

“Blood.” Lance stated flatly.

“I think you got pneumonia, buddy.” Shiro murmured, concerned. When Lance didn’t reply, he hurriedly continued. “It’s not uncommon to see blood with pneumonia, and it’s not too dangerous, as long as we keep an eye on it and get you treatment. The dust you just breathed in probably exacerbated it… Did this come on suddenly?”

“Was feeling kinda sick, but just… Got worse.” Lance rasped, finally wiping his hand off. “Couldn’t say anything, we’re the only ones available…”

“I still would’ve liked to know.”

Lance winced at Shiro’s admonishing tone, which was even worse when weak and pained. “Would you have brought me if I’d told you?”

Shiro’s silence was enough of an answer. Guilty and miserable, adrenaline no longer serving to belay his symptoms, which had come back tenfold after he’d gotten Shiro settled, Lance shivered and wrapped his arms around his torso, turning aside to hack up what felt to be at least fifty percent of his right lung.

“Easy, easy.” Shiro’s hand--the human one--rested on the back of Lance’s head, gently carding through his hair. Almost to himself, Shiro muttered, “I don’t like that fever…”

As soon as his lungs would let him, Lance huffed out a weak laugh.

“What is it?”

“Just funny.” The blue paladin wheezed, pressing his hands against his eyes in a vain attempt to quell the headache that throbbed beneath them. “You’re injured, I’m sick, and no one has any idea where we are. Funny.”

“Lance, maybe you should try and rest--”

Forgetting himself for a moment, Shiro tried to sit up, then yelped in pain, quickly falling back against the wall. Uncurling himself, Lance lay a shaky arm over Shiro’s shoulders, holding him up as the pain throbbed slowly away.

“Not until the others come.” Lance replied stubbornly. Shiro, breathing shallowly, huffed a weak laugh of his own.

“Okay… Yeah I think I can live with that.”

Another moment of silence, permeated only by Lance’s wheezing breaths and Shiro’s occasional hisses of pain.

“Hey, Shiro?” Lance breathed.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, ‘m good.” Lance murmured, pretending his chattering teeth and barely-there voice didn’t violently oppose that statement. “Just… When we get back, can we make Keith be our nurse and get stuff for us?”

“Definitely.”

“And can he wear a unifor--”

“Definitely not.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all, as you know tumblr is going downhill fast. I'm posting all my old whump works here, so expect an influx of Voltron whump. If you're new to my writing, welcome! If you've seen this one before, welcome back! As always, I appreciate any/all feedback, thank you so much for reading!


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